


The White Demon

by Violent_entertainment



Category: Naruto, 鬼滅の刃 | Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Pre-Konoha Village
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 10:49:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21456823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violent_entertainment/pseuds/Violent_entertainment
Summary: A short take on if Naruto and Demon Slayer took place in the same universe, but as a Founders-era AU. Ninjas are still ninjas, the Senju are still fighting the Uchiha, but now there's demons!
Relationships: Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama
Comments: 11
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

Tobirama woke in stages, slowly becoming aware of himself and his body. He didn’t remember falling asleep, or what he had been doing before he had. He wasn’t...quite...sure...where or even who he was, but that seemed less important than the shooting hunger pains like thousands of needles piercing him from the inside, and the uncomfortable feeling of something wet and tacky congealing under his cheek and in his hair, between his fingers, and soaking into his clothes where his body pressed against the cold wooden floor.

He twitched, curling in tighter around himself, eyes still scrunched tightly shut, and felt his back brush up against something as his spine curved––another body?––but he ignored it, too distracted by his own pain. 

Gradually he became aware of muffled sobs coming from the other side of the shoji door.

“Father...Kawarama...! This can’t be––Who could have…?” Hitching breaths gave way to a sudden panicked inhalation. “Itama! Tobirama! Where are-–” The shoji door slammed open, rattling in its housing, and Tobirama reluctantly cracked open one eye to stare at the disheveled young man with the long, loose brown hair heaving out gasps in the doorway, a look of horror in his eyes. 

He took three steps in and collapsed to his knees, hands outstretched and trembling over Tobirama. “Tobira? I–Itama?” 

Some instinct, animal-like, had Tobirama lunging at this newcomer. He was _dangerous_, and Tobirama was so _desperately_ hungry, and his teeth would sink so easily into that soft, pulsing, throat––destroying the threat and ending this terrible hunger in one blow. 

But the newcomer was fast, as distraught as he was, and Tobirama was still weak from his transformation––his what? why had he thought that?––from whatever had left him here, collapsed in this place. The newcomer grabbed both of Tobirama’s wrists in his own, and slammed him to the ground, straddling his waist and pinning him down. Tobirama may have not know much about himself at the moment, but he knew, ‘I should be stronger than this!’ But he could not surge upward with this man, this teenager’s, body weight holding him down. He somehow seemed stronger than a human should be. 

The stranger––or maybe not a stranger, he seemed familiar somehow––’s eyes darted between the wicked black claws Tobirama’s hands ended in, currently coated in drying blood and so unlike the blunt fingertips of the man himself, and then over to whatever it was Tobirama had briefly felt brushing up against his back before the door had opened––the body. Whose, he didn’t know. And a fury overcame the man, this strange man with the long brown hair and expressive eyes, so suddenly, so fiercely and so completely, that Tobirama felt the shock of it like a physical blade sliding into his heart. 

__________

Hashirama remembered the stories his grandmother had told him, cautionary tales his father had scoffed at. Demons who hid among humans, but ate human flesh. When he’d walked into the family compound, he’d thought his worst nightmares had come true, and another clan had taken the opportunity of him and his mokuton being far away on a mission to take down the mighty Senju once and for all. But this…

People had called Tobirama a demon since the day he was born, with his pale skin and hair, and his disconcertingly red eyes. Even before their father had put a sword in his sickly baby brother’s hands, with the reasoning training would build up his constitution, and before everyone, enemies and fellow Senju alike, came to recognize his prodigious skill on the battlefield, they called him a demon.

But his brothers knew better. Hashirama knew better. He’d held Tobirama in his arms as a baby, and he was human. He’d _been_ human when Hashirama left the compound only a few days ago.

Thick branches burst from knots in the wooden slats of the floor, called forth by the mokuton, and wrapped tightly around the struggling body beneath his. Assured the binding would not give, Hashirama let go of the creature's wrists––it looked _so_ much like his brother, except for those strange red streaks down the cheeks and chin that he’d initially mistaken for more blood––and instead placed one hand beside its head, balancing himself as he leaned forward, grabbing its jaw with his free hand and squeezing until it opened its mouth, revealing glinting fangs.

But there was no blood on its lips or teeth, for all that its face was splattered and blotched with it. Leaning closer still, hovering mere inches over its jaws and feeling its hot breath washing over his face as it panted, he couldn’t detect the scent of blood from its mouth at all. 

He sighed in relief that no piece of his family resided in this creature’s stomach, and sat back, still straddling its waist, and watched a line of drool leaking from the corner of its mouth as the creature hacked and wheezed from the rough treatment. 

His gaze slid to the poor collapsed body of little Itama, tears welling in his eyes, then frowned. 

The way Itama’s body was positioned, and the way the Tobira-impersonator’s had been as well when he’d first walked in, it looked as though Tobirama had been protecting him, placing himself between the younger boy and their attacker after a retreat from the initial assault in the antechamber, before both succumbed to their wounds. 

He recalled something else his grandmother had told him. Those who suffered a demon attack were doubly-cursed. Because if they survived, they would surely transform into a demon themselves.

He stared into the glazed red eyes of the thing underneath him. The slitted pupils dilated to nearly a normal round shape with adrenaline at his attention, and it flinched when Hashirama stroked a hand over its cheek.

“Is that really you, Tobira?” 

It only continued to pant, but he liked to imagine there might have been a “Hashi” among the quick “hah, hah, hah” of its breaths. 

“Wait right here,” he whispered. “Your big brother is going to fix this. Somehow.”

__________

Tobirama watched as the strangely familiar man pushed himself to his feet and vanished back through the door to the room he’d arrived from, rather than take this opportunity to kill him while his own throat was so exposed. When he returned mere moments later, he was carrying a sword. 

Tobirama growled and resumed his struggle but couldn’t break past the stiff tree limbs pinning him down, although they creaked at the strain. The man observed him for a moment sadly, then stepped around him and continued toward the back of the house.

From his position on the ground, Tobirama couldn’t see anything but what was directly above him, or slightly in front of him if he lifted his head. But for all that his thoughts were muddled, his sensing hadn’t left him, and his hearing was sharper than he expected. He followed the man...his brother?...’s chakra through the house and heard him slide open the door to what he somehow knew to be the back garden. He heard the swing of a blade and a quiet “thunk” of something light but sturdy hitting the grass. Then the tearing of fabric.

When the man’s face hovered over his own once again, he was holding a muzzle made from a length of bamboo and a strip of his own sleeve. A muzzle! Tobirama swung his head wildly in an attempt to prevent the man from sliding it up over his jaw, but the man didn’t make a move to even try. 

He simply gazed down at him sadly. Tears slowly rolled their way down his cheeks. “Please, Tobirama. Please.” 

And somehow, Tobirama quieted down. Whatever had been screaming in his head that this man was a threat wasn’t reacting anymore. His stomach still twisted in pain from the emptiness, but looking at this man’s face, something in his chest felt warm despite the chill of the floor. He closed his eyes and nodded, taking comfort in the familiar calluses on those warm fingers as they fitted the muzzle over his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarification: In case it wasn't clear, in this AU, Kawarama and Itama don't die until much later than they do in canon. Or maybe they were just born later. *shrug* In either case, they were still alive up until immediately before this story begins, and we're way past Hashirama and Madara hanging out on the riverbank and well into the fighting.


	2. Chapter 2

Hashirama had secured his brother away in his bedroom, still restrained, (“I’m sorry, Tobirama, just until I get back! I need to make sure you don’t run away before I understand what’s going on,”) while he made the rounds to check in on the rest of the clan’s safety.

It seemed only the main house had been attacked, which was suspicious enough in itself, but even more so was the fact no one had heard or sensed anything during the night. Not the sentries, not the servants, and not their aunt––Butsuma’s widowed sister––who lived so near Kawarama had often complained about her awful biwa playing whenever she decided to practice with a window open. Hashirama had startled her badly when he burst through her front door, covered in second-hand blood stains and chakra buzzing with fear and worry, ready to discover another body and instead had interrupted her breakfast. 

Solemn, weary, and anxious to get back to his brother, he gathered the clan elders, the various heads of the extended family, and the highest ranking shinobi in the Senju forces to inform them of the death of his father and two youngest brothers, as well as the “severe wounding” of Tobirama. Concerning the latter, he informed them he would be seeing to Tobirama’s care personally and would not tolerate anyone interrupting his brother’s recovery. 

With his rapid instatement as new clan head, he ordered the immediate deployment of the clan’s best trackers, accompanied by an escort of heavy hitters (retaining a few for home defense), to attempt to trace the direction of flight of his family’s killer, to the killer themselves or whoever had sent them, as filial duty demanded. 

But he made no mention of demons when he sent them out––Tobirama had often accused him of being naive, but in this matter, at least, he knew he couldn’t afford to have his sanity or fitness as a leader questioned, couldn’t really be sure if it had even been a demon attack or something else, and _couldn’t_ cast any suspicion on Tobirama or raise questions about his current...condition. He doubted they would find anything in either case.

Already there were angry murmurs that it must have been the Uchiha that had done this, but his heart was too heavy and confused to defend his old friend as heatedly as he usually would. Instead he only made a point to say that were the Uchiha to wipe out the Senju main family, they would choose to do it on the battlefield, where it could be witnessed and condoned by the burning eye of their god Amaterasu, rather than sneakily in the night like it was simply a job for coin. When two clans had spilled as much blood between them as the Senju and Uchiha, they owed each other more than that. Then he took his leave, citing the need to ready the bodies for burial.  
__________

The stranger was waiting for him outside the house, sword out but pointed at the ground. He’d been looking through the window into the antechamber, no doubt able to see the shapes of the two bodies within, but he turned his head as Hashirama approached. 

The former clan heir, now clan head found himself dangerously close to losing the last drop of his legendary clemency at the reveal that the sentries had now missed a _second_ intruder in less than 12 hours, but even he had not expected another, seemingly unrelated, incursion so soon after the first. 

“I’m sorry I did not make it in time to stop this massacre,” the man greeted him.

“Neither did I,” Hashirama replied warily. “Perhaps if I hadn’t stopped for the night and pushed on, I would have arrived to catch it in the act.”

“It.” The man tilted his head slightly. “So you know.” 

He wore a black uniform of some kind, the jacket buttoned up the front and ending in a high collar tight against the throat. Over the uniform, he wore a strange haori, one half a sedate wine-red, the other a dizzying pattern of green, yellow, and orange. He wore no clan symbol, but he didn’t need to.

That thick, wild black hair, that pale skin, those dark eyes––He’d willfully ignored the signs back when he’d first met Madara at the river years ago, so desperate for a friend, or really anyone who’d listen to his dreams without derision, much less share in them––but he couldn’t ignore them now. Not when his brother, and his entire clan, were at stake, unsteady and ripe for attack after the loss of Butsuma. Not when he desperately needed to control the flow of information about what actually happened last night to the outside world. Even if that meant killing any who stumbled across it before he determined how to present it. 

“You’re an Uchiha.”

The man’s eyes widened a bit in surprise. “I had not expected to hear that name. I didn’t realize I’ve been drawn so deeply into Hi no Kuni in this hunt.” 

Hashirama’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t recognize you. I thought I’d seen all the Uchiha warriors at this point.”

“There is no reason why you should recognize me. We do not fight on the same battlefield.” The mysterious Uchiha replaced his sword into its sheath as proof he did not intend to fight. 

“You are correct when you label me Uchiha, but you are also incorrect. I am Giyu of the Tomioka clan. But the Uchiha clan contribute a child to the Tomioka once every generation. It is their tithe to the Demon Slayer Corps for a long ago debt.”

‘Demon Slayer Corps.’ The name was self-explanatory, but whether they’d be helpful allies to have or not wasn’t clear enough yet. But that wasn’t the only interesting thing the man had said. 

“I don’t believe you. I know the Uchiha, and they value family above all else. They wouldn’t sell their children away like that, debt or no debt.”

The man’s mouth turned slightly down in a frown. “That is exactly why those tithed away are not allowed to bear the Uchiha name. Tomioka are not considered kin to the Uchiha, and thus they are not required to extend us any familial devotion. But Uchiha is not the only clan name in this world that is due respect, and we are a _proud_ demon slaying clan. All our children grow up to do their duty for the Corps.”

‘A duty you failed in when you allowed my family to be slaughtered and my brother to be turned into––’ Hashirama couldn’t even finish the sentence in his own thoughts lest he start turning the blame on himself, and he couldn't afford to fall into despair right now, couldn’t let his heart get control over his head like his father and Tobirama always criticized. Instead his mind turned to the other revelations this mysterious Uchiha, or rather, Tomioka, had implied with his words.

‘How widespread is this Demon Slayer Corps that entire clans are dedicated to swelling its ranks? That they can strong-arm a clan as powerful as the Uchiha? Why have I never heard of them, or demons, until today? And does this mean…?’

“If this happens once every generation, then you expect me to believe _Madara Uchiha_ knows about it and allows it.” His friend had already ascended to clan head, after all. 

Tomioka supplied him only with an inscrutable stare. Hashirama waited for him to react with anger or some exaggerated, flamboyant gesture he’d come to expect from Uchiha men, but the man did nothing, finally replying stiffly, “I don’t know a Madara. I do not have contact with the Uchiha. But if he is very old or very high in the clan, then yes, he would know about the practice. If he is very young, then he may not.”

Silence stretched between the two of them. “Well, there is nothing remaining to be done here. I suggest you take your leave,” Hashirama responded, coldly polite.

Tomioka nodded slowly. “This demon I am tracking...he is no ordinary demon. If he attacked your family, it was likely for a reason. But I agree. He is no longer here. If you need me, however, ask a crow.” He turned and left. Hashirama didn’t take his eyes off him until he was out of sight, then immediately ran inside the house, a little panicked. 

“Tobiramaaaaaaaaaaaa!” 

__________

Tobirama blinked up at the ceiling in frustration. The bed, at least, was warmer than the floor, but he still couldn’t move his arms and legs. That man, Hashirama, wasn’t here anymore either––Tobirama had felt his chakra several buildings away, along with a lot of other people, which was a thought he’d come back to later––and he was struggling to remember why he needed to stay put.

He wasn’t feeling nearly as unsteady and weak as a few hours ago, and he thought he might now be able to…’Ah, yes, let’s try…’

With a final straining tug, he snapped the branches restraining his wrists, and with his hands now free, tore apart the restraints at his ankles with a slash of his claws. But now what?

He was still hungry. The pain in his stomach had been enough to make him want to curl up and die when he first woke up, and it hadn’t abated in the slightest, but he was starting to get a little used to it now, like a bad smell or white noise. 

This room felt familiar, and safe, but he still didn’t feel like staying in here anymore. He left the room and returned, instead, to where he woke up. 

The small body was lying in the same spot as before, but it had been rolled off its stomach and onto its back, the limbs had been rearranged to lie neat and straight, and the haori Hashirama had been wearing when he first opened the door was now draped over the face. Tobirama pulled the cloth back curiously. The lack of a jumping pulse in the neck, and the cold, stiffened texture of the flesh at his prodding failed to excite his tastebuds, but the shooting pains were making themselves known more loudly again.

His gaze turned to the blood liberally painting the floor. Most of it was dry and came up in brown flakes when he scratched at it with a claw but where it pooled more thickly, only the surface had crusted, and it was still liquid, although thick and sticky, underneath. One patch, he could tell, didn’t come from a human. 

His mouth was watering uncontrollably now and he couldn’t think of anything but the blood on the floor, even while a tiny piece of himself far back in his head took note of Hashirama’s chakra signature approaching, now very close although stopped momentarily by some other, unfamiliar one. Getting down onto the floor, he tried to lick it up, but moaned in frustration when the muzzle bumped against the floor each time he tried. 

He pulled at the muzzle but it was tied too tightly. Hashirama had said something about making sure it couldn’t slip down, but Hashirama wasn’t here and that made it difficult to remember the feeling that made him want to do what Hashirama told him to.

He tugged at it a few more times before cutting the tie with a claw. It clattered against the ground and he immediately began lapping at the floor with his tongue. The buzzing in his head and the pain in his stomach went from a 10 to maybe a 9.5.

He wasn’t sure how much later it was that he heard, “Oh, Tobi…” from behind him, but he knew it was only seconds after that, that he was pinned down again by tree branches. He gave in immediately without a struggle. 

Tobirama heard Hashirama walk over to the small body and crouch beside it, giving a sigh of relief when he found no bite marks. Then his face was hanging over Tobirama’s again. He looked worried, disconcerted, holding the muzzle by the snapped cord in one hand. “That’s a ‘no’ on the option to leave his hands free, then,” he spoke softly to himself.

“Is it the blood, Tobi? Would that...make it easier on you?” Tobirama’s eyes jumped to Hashirama’s throat, then away, ashamed. Not of the wanting, but of even considering Hashirama as a source.

“I can give you that, if it would help. Because you didn’t touch Itama. So that means you must still be my brother.” Tobirama’s eyes flick back up, confused. 

Hashirama looked a little green, but also resolved. He withdrew a kunai and made a cut on the inside of his arm, near the vein, then turned his arm over and held it out above Tobirama’s mouth so that it dripped out in a thin but steady flow. The relief he felt as the first of it hit his tongue was that of a man in the desert offered water for the first time in days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Giyu is really hard to write. I've only watched the anime, so forgive me if he's really off, or if I plowed over a super character relevant backstory.


	3. Chapter 3

The brothers sat staring at each other. Hashirama slumped on the bed, elbows on his thighs and head in his hands. Tobirama sat stiffly in a chair, muzzle back on and wrists cuffed together behind his back. 

“What am I going to do with you, Tobirama?” Predictably, Tobirama said nothing in reply, but Hashirama couldn’t be sure whether it was because of the muzzle or because his brother still hadn’t found his words again. He seemed more aware of his surroundings after his...meal, at least. 

“I got too used to you cleaning up my messes, so this must be what they mean when they say turnabout is fair play,” Hashirama sighed.

Tobirama gave what Hashirama thought might have been a sound of amusement, and he sat up instantly, thrilled. “Tobirama? Are you back?”

His brother didn’t say anything else, but Hashirama was so _sure_ of what he heard. He continued to talk aloud, hoping Tobirama was getting some benefit from it. “I bet you just need more familiar things around you to jolt you back to normal. You’ve suffered a trauma, after all. Let’s go to your lab. You love it there! You’d spend all day in there if you could.” 

Jumping up, he grabbed Tobirama by the upper arm, and began tugging him out the door, his brother obediently following. Tobirama’s “lab” was a small room Hashirama had grown for him in the back garden for a birthday, a quiet place where he could get away from all his noisy and nosy brothers to research and develop his new jutsu in peace. Once he was among his notebooks and tools, Hashirama was sure he’d remember everything and they could work out a way forward together, just like it should be.

He’d barely taken a step out the back door before Tobirama roared in pain, flinching back so hard he sent Hashirama, hand still wrapped around his arm, sprawling to the floor alongside him. 

“Tobi! What was that––” Then he saw the blackened, flaking skin on the exposed parts of his brother’s arm and foot where the sunlight had touched them. “Oh no oh no, forgive me, Tobirama! I didn’t mean to––I didn’t know!” He frantically performed a medical ninjutsu, coating his palms in the calming green light and let it do its work. When the damage seemed to have been repaired, he crushed his brother to himself in a bruising hug, whispering “sorry, forgive me,” over and over into his hair. 

When he felt a little calmer, he sat up, easing his brother’s head into his lap and plastered a smile he didn’t entirely feel onto his face, forcing himself to feel it. Tobirama had always been an exceptional sensor, and when Hashirama was in a bad mood, agitating his chakra, it tended to make his pale brother ill-tempered as well. Which meant he needed to put on a bright face for him, to help him get better. “You’ve always gotten bad sunburns, Tobira. So this isn’t that different. Now we know.” 

__________

It had been over a week since the day Hashirama came home to find his family dead. Tobirama still hadn’t recovered, but as he seemed to have no interest in eating Hashirama, he’d been given free rein of the house. 

Hashirama considered it a major victory that he’d only needed to tackle him to the ground once, when Toka had come by asking to see Tobirama, and Tobirama had tried to answer the door. Hashirama had had to shout through the door that Tobirama still wasn’t well enough for visitors, and that she really needed to leave immediately. He winced, knowing she wouldn’t take the dismissal well, but unsure what else to do. He _really_ wasn’t ready for visitors.

They hadn’t engaged in battle with the Uchiha again yet, and no clan had claimed responsibility for the attack (and only Hashirama knew none ever would), so their situation remained stable for now.

But even the rumor that someone had managed to overcome Butsuma in his own home would be damning to the clan’s reputation, so Hashirama had firmly enforced that the official story would be that Butsuma had succumbed to sudden illness, and Itama and Kawarama had been sent away to an undisclosed location for safety to prevent them from catching it as well. But the family was starting to ask about Tobirama. 

Hashirama’s talent for treating wounds was well-known, and that no one had seen hide nor hair of the remaining brother was beginning to grow suspicious. They needed him on the battlefield. So Hashirama had taken him out the last few nights to train, or at least attempt to. 

Tobirama had never been social. If no one ever saw him outside of fighting, when he didn’t need to talk, that would be fine. But they needed to see him, even if it was only possible on overcast days or under the cover of trees. And Tobirama was needed. Which was why Hashirama was out here under the light of the moon, giving his demon brother a sword. 

He seemed content now to leave the muzzle be, but Hashirama couldn’t forget that he had torn it off once already, which is why his hands had to remain tied behind him throughout the day. But he couldn’t fight with his hands tied behind his back. 

Hashirama was reluctant to untie him altogether, and if they were tied in front Tobira could still reach his face, but swapping out his usual short sword for a two-handed blade should solve that problem without Hashirama needing to remove the restraints. He’d figure out a way to explain them to the rest of the clan once he’d proved this could work. 

He was so preoccupied trying to encourage his brother, who had been an unparalleled swordsman, to swing the blade, and over the problem of how to define “acceptable” targets to someone he was only reasonably sure understood what he was saying, that he didn’t notice the presence watching from the treeline. Tobirama did.

__________

Though as red as the sharingan, Tobirama’s eyes had no supernatural powers to track micro-movements, predict where and how a body would move next, or record combat styles in precise detail to duplicate. They only had the same ability as anyone to observe. Nonetheless, bright with curiosity, they took in Tomioka’s form as his sword came free of its sheath and observed the way the man’s breathing deepened and evened out, remaining intent on the man’s every movement. 

“Water Breathing, Third Style: Dance of the Rapid Current.” 

Hashirama barely managed to pull up a doton wall in time for the surprise attack, and even then the man’s sword unbelievably cracked it, crumbling the blockade into rubble that collapsed back into dirt. 

“You!” Hashirama shouted in disbelief.

“I thought there was something suspicious about the attack on this clan. I never suspected you would be harboring a demon to use as a weapon, especially after it was responsible for killing your family.”

Hashirama blanched. “This isn’t the demon that killed my father and brothers––this _is_ my brother! He survived the attack! And I won’t let you touch him!” 

Tomioka grimaced. “How regrettable. I feel your grief, but your brother is lost. He _is_ now a demon, and the best thing you can do for him is allow me to end his cursed existence so his soul can go unimpeded to the Pure Lands.”

Hashirama stepped in front of his brother, to the demon’s annoyance. He was very interested in these whole proceedings, more so than whatever Hashirama had been going on about earlier before this new person had arrived. This was the presence he’d sensed near Hashirama before, although he had forgotten until now. 

“That _won’t_ be necessary. This isn’t a permanent state of affairs, it’s just until we sort things out. My brother is the most intelligent, ingenuitive, resourceful person I know. He’ll figure out a way to reverse it.” 

Tomioka shook his head. “He may have _been_ all those things, but your brother is not currently in his right mind. Newly turned demons are little better than starving animals. You are very lucky you are as strong as you are, or else he would no doubt have devoured you already. I doubt anyone else would be safe, if you took the muzzle and cuffs off.”

Tobirama glared daggers from his position hidden partly behind Hashirama, who spoke up quickly in his brother’s defense. 

“That’s not true! Well, he did try to eat me,” he said this part quickly, as if hoping if he spoke the words fast enough, Tomioka wouldn’t notice, “but only once! He _let_ me put the muzzle on him, he trusts me. He knows something is wrong with him, and he’s trusting me to help him, so I _have_ to help him. He’s my little brother.” A surge of emotion passed over him. “The only little brother I have left now.” 

Tomioka stared at him, looking for something in his face. Hashirama could not tell if he found it, and whether it was good or bad if he did. “Demons are monsters, but they are also living creatures. If they go too long without eating, they will die,” he eventually stated, his opinion on this fact unclear, as he slowly began to walk in a wide circle around the brothers. Hashirama turned in place to keep him in sight. 

“Then I’ll find a way to feed him. I’ll grow him all the mushrooms he can eat! They’re very protein-rich, you know.” The longer he spoke, the higher and more frantic Hashirama’s voice grew, and he took a few more steps after Tomioka, hands outstretched as if pleading. “I’ll catch him wild deer, and I won’t even cook them. Hell, I’ll––I’ll only send him on assassination missions! No one should kick up a fuss if he eats the targets, right?” 

He winced at his own words, not truly believing them, but broke off when Tomioka stopped in place. 

“Only when a demon begins to devour humans does the hunger sate enough for it to regain its reason. And the more it consumes, the stronger it grows, even commanding demon blood arts more powerful than any jutsu,” he lectured. “But it will also permanently lose any semblance of its humanity, including all hope of regaining its memories of its life as a human.”

Then, faster than Hashirama could move, faster than the hiraishin Tobirama had developed and been trying to perfect, Tomioka was in front of Tobirama, blade through his chest. The two were so close, Tobirama could feel the beat of his heart, hear the way his breathing technique pumped blood faster and in greater volume than was typical in ordinary combat. Tomioka breathed out, and the breath was itself quiet words that Tobirama somehow felt were meant solely for him. “Water Breathing, Seventh Form: Piercing Rain Drop.” Or maybe he imagined it. The blood thing was awfully distracting. 

Hashirama stood frozen in shock, not having realized that Tomioka’s pacing around the clearing was to give him a clear shot at Tobirama until it was too late. Tomioka pulled the sword free, pushing Tobirama to his knees, and stood behind him, blade laid against his neck. When he spoke this time, he spoke only to Hashirama.

“Listen to me. That wound is not fatal. The next will be, if you force my hand. I don’t know if there is a way to turn a demon back into a human, but I know this. If a demon kills and devours even a single human, it can _never_ be human again, and I must take it out before it kills again. That is my duty as a Demon Slayer.”

Tobirama took deep and even breaths, mimicking Tomioka. He knew the wound would heal on its own quite quickly, but the breathing seemed to make it heal faster. Around him, the air grew thick with the intensity of Hashirama’s anger. “Let him go.”

For the first time, Tomioka grew angry right back, shouting “I need you to understand the gravity of the task you are undertaking!”

The trees surrounding the clearing began to sway and shake as if in a strong wind, although the air remained stagnant. “I said, **let him go.**” 

Tomioka stepped back, and in a flash, was at the edge of the clearing. He resheathed his blade and turned to face Hashirama, who was holding Tobirama’s face in one hand, the other against his chest, inspecting him for any hint of the injury. A crow fluttered down from a tree to land on Tomioka's shoulder. 

Tobirama, with his sharp hearing, could hear it murmur into the Demon Slayer’s ear in a croaking voice, “Muzan Kibutsuji is creating new demons to the Northwest. You must go Northwest.” Tomioka shuddered and gave a brief nod. 

“Hashirama.” The man looked up, glaring at the Demon Slayer.

“Demons cannot abide wisteria. If you grow wisteria trees along your property lines and keep them blooming all year round, no demons will pass onto your land.” He paused. “Your brother, also, will be unable to pass them and will be trapped inside. It...would be a kind prison.”

Having said his piece, he turned and left. Leaving Hashirama slumped, absorbing this information, with Tobirama’s face still in his hands, red eyes trained on his brown ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tobirama doesn't heal instantly because he isn't chowing down on humans (yet?) and I'm not convinced a demon could even heal damage from the sun on its own anyway.


End file.
